Kyra takes a stab at The Oxford Murders
Based on the novel of the same name by Guillermo Martinez (which I haven't bothered to read and now definitely won't), The Oxford Murders stars Elijah Wood as a wide-eyed The Oxford Murders - although for the most part made of stupid - has the rare distinction of Getting It Wrong in a new and interesting way. The problem with most mysteries is that payoff rarely lives up to the build-up but, for this film, the opposite is true. The conclusion is a genuinely intriguing twist that beautifully illuminates the intellectual themes of the film (previously painfully transmitted through streams of semi-intelligible dialogue). But two hours of dross is a high price to pay for two minutes of "ahhh."
It's not that the rest of the film is awful, it's just that nothing is quite right with it. Except the maths - I understand from Those In The Know that the maths is pretty sound (despite not being terribly well explained in the course of the film - but what would I know, I'm a lit geek)
Victim 1: the script
The dialogue, for the most part, clunks along like a penguin with a wooden leg, occasionally veneering into downright incomprehensibility. One of the main problems, I suspect, is that the two leads are supposed to be terribly terribly clever, so they talk the way some averagely clever writer imagines two terribly terribly clever must talk. The result is pretentious and unwieldy, often rather dull, and occasionally just plain stupid. A particularly notable example of this is when Hurt is narrating the fate of his friend Kalman, an Oxford mathematician who gets a little bit too involved in the nature of logical series. He gradually degenerates into lunacy and also, coincidentally, develops some form of cancer that requires his limbs to be amputated. This is all shown in flashback (not the amputations) and the last flashback we see of Kalman is him asking Hurt's help in performing a self-lobotomy in order to better think outside himself (or something). "It was then," intones Hurt, dramatically, "that I realised my friend had gone completely mad." As if Kalman sitting there in a wheelchair, sans leg and wearing no pants was not a bit of a hint in that direction anyway. And to think these guys expect to solve a murder.
Victim 2: the acting
Given what they have to work with, the cast members seem to have been impelled in one of two directions: desperate overcompensation (Julie Cox and Anna Massey, both of whom spend most of their screen time hysterical) or zombie-like despair (John Hurt and Leonor Watling, both of whom seem to going through the motions, salvaged only from disaster by his purring authoritas and her voluptuous breasts). Elijah Wood is just dreadful: his one expression (big blue eyes, anxious wrinkled brow) means he spends most of the film looking lost and a little bit scared. You exit the film with no concept of his character at all - he is convincing neither as an intellectual nor as a ladies man. And it makes the sex scenes particularly excruciating as Watling bounces around and Wood looks increasingly terrified. They have no chemistry whatsoever which essentially makes a strand of the film, which I suspect we're meant to get emotionally invested in, completely pointless.
Victim 3: awful awful sex scenes including cruelty to spaghetti
Enough said.
Victim 4: dodgy, out-of-place action sequences
The film presents itself very much as an English murder mystery - with all the attendant walking meditatively down the street, sitting meditatively in arm chairs and drinking meditative cups of tea. Therefore the pointless Oxford roof-top chase feels as jarring as if Miss Marple suddenly rampaged through St Mary Mead with an AK47.
Victim 5: the bus full of retards
I don't know how to say this without being offensive myself but the film contains an appalling depiction of the mentally disabled: specifically, as their bus trundles across Oxfordshire, we are treated to shots of them blinking and smiling with vacuous amiability, doing harmless but slightly weird things like pressing their noses against the windows, and, of course, singing Frere Jacques together but a bit off key. It's genuinely quite offensive, I think because it's so clearly presented as a generic "bus o' retards" bulk hired from the local Rent-A-Tard. For heaven's sake!
Victim 6: annoying assumptions about stuff
One of the other things that irritated me about the film was the juxtaposition it established between "intellectual" and "normal" life. Specifically the protagonist's admiration for Seldom constantly comes under attack from other characters (they say he's obsessed, or gay, or obsessed and gay); even though Seldom himself is a bit of a bastard it strikes me as fundamentally point-missy for the film to be unable to acknowledge the genuine and passionate appreciation one can feel for another person's intellectual achievements and capabilities. Similarly, the possibility of a relationship with Watling's character is always set against the possibility of solving the murder mystery: again, intellectual engagement is presented as the opposite of a sane and healthy life. There are various examples of people having gone batshit due to Overuse Of The Brain (cf poor legless Kamlan mentioned above) and both female characters end up leaving the evil, intellectual city for sane, ordinary places. Come on, now. Oxford, it's true, can be a little stifling but it's also an amazing place. And for the last time it is possible to be an intellectual and still have sex.
And, finally, because I'm an arse: let's have a go at things specifically annoying to someone who lives in Oxford. These do not in any way interfere with your enjoyment (or lack thereof) of the film. They just bugged the crap out of me because I can be that much of a pedant sometimes.
1) For a film that puts such a lot of effort into using "the real" Oxford, it occasionally does completely mad things for no apparent reason. My personal favourite was when Hurt and Wood were having a drink (and an intense conversation about mathematics and Cluedo) in The White Horse, a very traditional Oxford pub, supposedly a favourite hangout of crusty old academics. Now, we see them enter The White Horse, we see them inside having their tete a tete but when they step outside again they emerge at the opposite end of Broad Street, as I have shown the following helpful map:
In essence, they go in here:
And they come out here:
I don't know about you but I find the idea of John Hurt and Elijah Wood shopping for bras together more than a little bit kinky.
2) On another occasion, we see Elijah Wood's character working in a big square library. We see him emerging, a few minutes, from the Radcliffe Camera which looks like this (yes this is just an excuse to show off pretty pictures of Oxford):
Isn't that interesting? Square rooms in a notoriously round building.
3) Elijah Wood's character comes all the way from America to do a doctorate in Oxford - on arriving, he explains to the college that he wants Seldom to be his supervisor. The college looks askance at this and suggests he find someone else. Now for Heaven's sake, I know this is Oxford and I know it's meant to be 1993 but surely you'd arrange your thesis supervisor before travelling halfway across the world and you'd also think that it would, in fact, be arranged for you. It's not like Americans are regularly found andering Oxford's streets, accosting academics and asking plaintively "will be my dphil supervisor, please please please?"
4) At the end of the film, young Elijah, close to solving the mystery, decides he needs to consult "a book" (any book will do) and rushes to the Bodleian Library. Finding it closed, he heads for Blackwells bookshop instead. Hang on a minute, this is Oxford, city of libraries. There are no conceivable circumstances in which Blackwells would be open and the Bodleian would be closed. Absolutely none.
5) Additionally, I think even people not familiar with Oxford would understand the concept of a copyright library. You can't just dash into the Bod and find "a book" - you have to a) know what you want and b) order it up from the stacks or from Nuneham which, these days, can take up up to 24 hours to arrive, took yet longer in 2000 and probably took a week or so in 1993.
6) Just to flog this dead horse for a little bit longer, in order to acquire this random book of murder mystery solving, Wood pegs it into the Norrington Room - that's the huge Blackwells basement, stuffed to the gills with an extensive range of academic texts. He starts thumbing through books on mathematics without success, whereupon Watling hands him what looks like some kind of illustrated children's book on the same subject. What sort of academic bookshop is likely to have children's non-fiction filed next to their mathematics section? When they do, in fact, find the answer they're looking for, Wood then picks up another random book on The History of Surgery. So, Blackwells now has mathematics, children's books and medicine all on the same shelf? You defame the mighty Blackwells, Oxford Murders, you defame it!
Just to bring the ranting to a well-deserved close, The Oxford Murders is basically a big let down. The Oxford inconsistencies are entirely forgivable (it's just fun to bitch about them) but the rest of its problems are severe enough on their own to ruin the film. It's genuinely a shame because, at its heart, it is an interesting mystery with something to say but without an appropriate build up the payoff - however intellectually satisfying - falls miserably flat.
